Congress Elected by States with Wildly Divergent Opinions Mysteriously Deadlocked

This week’s news brings us another entry into the well-worn “Looks like those clowns in Congress have done it again, what a bunch of clowns” category. They can’t “get anything done,” as usual, and now we have a concrete figure to anchor their “underachievement.”

“The 113th Congress has passed all of 55 laws so far this year,” the New York Times writes, “seven fewer at this point than the 112th Congress—the least productive Congress ever.” What a bunch of clowns.

And though the House and Senate only have one more week in this calendar year where their in-session schedules align, there should be a mini-surge of “must-pass” legislation coming up. A budget bill and/or short-term funding of the government should, surprisingly, be the smoothest of these, as Republicans have finally realized that it’s more fruitful to pound away at Obamacare than it is to shut down the government over each and every budget demand. The “doc fix” will pass again, as it always does, to pay doctors who treat Medicare recipients. The annual defense authorization act will pass before New Year’s—probably on New Year’s Eve, via voice vote—because Congress Supports The Troops.

Other major legislative efforts, however, are indeed . . . dead? Is “dead” the right word? Let’s go with “dead.” Quoth the Times:

At the same time, major bills passed by the Senate with bipartisan majorities to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws, update farm programs, allow states to collect sales taxes from online retailers and protect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from workplace discrimination have been blocked from votes in the House—where members of both parties say they could pass.

“At some point, the Republican leadership has to ask itself, ‘Why are they here?’ ” said Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts, a negotiator on the farm bill. “These are things that really need to get done.”

Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA), meanwhile, explains it in classic, lame language: “Washington is largely broken.”

It’s a fun and easy way to conclude any conversation about gridlock. “Washington is broken.” It’s just those clowns in Congress, not doing anything. What is wrong with them?

What is Washington, though? It’s a relatively lifeless three-quarter-diamond-shaped office park carved out of Maryland. It is a neutral plot of land. Then what happens? Assholes from across the country meet there to decide how to spend public monies.

That’s where the problems come in when you’ve got a country that really doesn’t agree on anything. The reason a comprehensive immigration reform bill has not passed the House and been signed into law is not because “Washington is broken.” It’s because a lot of people in certain parts of the country really do not want a comprehensive immigration reform bill to pass. And so they send a Republican to Washington, tell him or her not to vote for a comprehensive immigration reform bill, and the Republican representative says “OK, I won’t.” Same thing for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

Similarly, there are a lot of things that the House has passed that, thank god, the Senate has shown no interest in taking up.

The idea that “Americans” want Washington to “just get something done” but Washington can’t because of some weird voodoo spell that has rendered it “broken” doesn’t hold up. A voter would like Washington to get the things done that that voter wants Washington to get done, and to kill off everything that voter doesn’t want to get done. The few things that most people agree should get done—like funding the government—do get done. (With some hiccups along the way every ~20 years.) On most other things, this dumb country has too many divergent sets of beliefs, and that’s why nothing happens.